What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
I have spent enough time grumbling. I am determined to be joyful and embrace this adventure.
Thus:
I am grateful for the freedom to pick up and go.
I am grateful to have the options I have.
I am grateful that the tech creeps showed their true colors now rather than later.
I am grateful that I have a good home for Chanel to go to.
I am grateful for my relative health.
I am grateful for my friends who continue to be super supportive.
I am grateful to have a house to sell, in a strong market with little inventory.
I am grateful for the amazing people that are part of my life through Anti-Cancer Club.
I am grateful for having learned to meditate.
I am grateful for knowing that a sense of completeness lies within me, not without.
I am grateful for the adventures before me.
#Gratitude
#Namaste
Last night I had dinner with Vanessa who is a concert violinist. She once sold everything she had and hit the road for a series of concerts and competitions she organized. She understands the emotional tug and pull of such an adventure.
“One day I was high, the next day depressed,” she confided. The import of letting go of routine and embracing adventure is not a pure path.
“Good things are coming down the road. Just don’t stop walking.”-Robert Warren Painter, Jr.
And a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
When the going gets tough, the tough go traveling. Time for some R&R, preferably spiced with a bit of history and aviation!
I am a bit of a history buff and World War II, a war my father flew in, has always piqued my interest. My father was a navigator in B17s stationed in England. The Eighth Army Air Force had the highest casualty rate of all the service branches. As a pilot who has had the opportunity to be SCARED in the air (I once danced with a massive thunder cloud that nearly ripped my plane apart-with me in it!), I don’t know how anyone could have done what these young men did. I don’t think I could have faced my fears, my mortality, at that age and repeatedly flown into war. But they did. Day after day. Wow. I have such respect and regard for them.
Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man. Landing is the first. -Pithy Pilot Sayings
Years ago I walked into St. Paul’s cathedral in London with my father and there was a display with a book under glass. The book contained a list of men who had died. One of my father’s flight mates was on the page that just happened to be open.
My father died at 60. This year I’ll be sixty. I don’t see any pre-ordained limitations or similarities, but he died of pancreatic cancer, after a period of considerable stress. I too have been under massive stress and I need to make my health my priority.
So Hawaii ho! If I have to be #HomelessWithCancer, I’m going to have some fun!
Why Hawaii? I haven’t been there. It’s a restful, restorative place. My health has taken a horrible beating since September, and I know that I need to attend to my physical and spiritual self.
Pearl Harbor is obviously on the must see list, but the purpose of my trip is healing. I am not looking for the resort experience or for an urban challenge. I am looking to restore my creativity and outlook on life.
One of my cancer friends and fellow blogger Eileen Rosenbloom (Woman In The Hat) will be on Kauai and I want to get together with her. Stephie will be on the Big Island in May and if our stays coincide, we want to get together. I’d like to visit each island, and see what healing spaces and places each offers.
It all depends on when my house sells. And where things stand with ThinkTLC.
“Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” —Steve Maraboli
What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
–Margaret Mead
On Twitter this week, this caught my eye. It’s from the Parisian surgeon Olivier Branford whose tweets I enjoy enormously.
For a while, I rather enjoy some routine. It’s great to know where the good snow is on a mountain. To know that you’re likely to find lift next to the ridge. To know that it’s Friday night and you’re playing tennis and doing dinner afterwards. Routine can be nice.
But we can become so mired in our routines that we forget there’s a big world out there. We lose our spontaneity. And then the routine becomes a deepening rut.
I remember being at Ashland the year I was on the road with Whiskey Oscar. I was lucky enough to get a standing room only spot in the back of the theatre, and then after intermission a front row seat! The performance was Macbeth and it was stunning.
At intermission, I sat on a stone wall and watched the crowd. I felt like I knew who all these people were, without having ever met them. They all moved in a certain way; said the appropriate thing; played their small role in a social medley without a flaw.
It was a perfect ordinary event, but it gave me an eerie feeling. I felt as though I was watching a dance and everyone wore a mask. The mask –a combination of clothes and mannerisms, musts and must nots–tightly defined them. I just watched, feeling very disconnected on the one hand, but also very connected to a deep sense the familiarity of the scene. I’d been there so many times in my life. But now I seemed to look in from some other place. I had no routine or mask to define my presence.
Once again, I feel like I’m looking at a life, but this time it’s mine. It’s like watching a slow motion crash. It’s almost an out of body experience as I do the tasks I must do to sell the house; to pack; to say goodby to my beloved Chanel. This can’t be happening; I don’t want to be #HomelessWithCancer, even on an adventure. But events are now beyond my control. The only control I have is to let go.
When the going gets tough, the tough go traveling!
An excerpt from Adventures By Sailplane
B.S. (By Sailplane) B.C. (Before Cancer)
New Orleans 1988
At the start of the year, Michael held onto his acquired aura of Yankee stoicism, a bulwark against this sensuous town. Years of WASP repression had sent his instincts for pleasure deep into hiding, and the New England spareness of his school days provided him cover. Here in New Orleans, he held onto these props of security.
Narcotic prescriptions were doled out only reluctantly. “Drug addicts,” he judged his patients’ pain without care.
“Just give them what they need,” Monsieur le Doctor told him.
Nights on call became a battle of wits and will, with Michael’s patients pitted against his prescriptive reticence, trying to crack his power over their pain. And somewhere amidst the eternal heat of the summer, the endless stream of sick and unhappy patients, and the constant strain of studying for the upcoming boards, Michael changed his mind, and prescriptions for narcotics started to flow easily.
The ring of the phone became an inconvenience to be dealt with, a pill to be administered. But slowly, anger seeped into the equation. Anger at the phone, the patients, at everything and at nothing. At times it became frightening to be around Michael and his emerging anger, always hidden but never far from the calm ivy league surface of Monsieur Henri’s star pupil.
The year unfolded. My classes were wonderful. In terms of architecture, I learned about Louisiana from the perspective of her buildings. I studied suburban and urban buildings; townhouses in the quarter and plantations in the country. The garden district houses and uptown showcases. By Christmas, I could walk through any part of town and rattle off the buildings, the ornamentation the architects and the dates.
My other class was American cartography, but it was really about how Louisiana determined the geographic exploration and evolution of the U.S. Every facet of American cartography was examined from the perspective of the Gulf of Mexico. New England, that tiny collection of states on the morning weather map, barely warranted a mention. It was a most interesting perspective.
My eye was constantly on the map. Old maps in class, tv maps in the morning, maps of the future in my mind. Where to next? Anyplace north was my vote. Back to New Haven. Boston. Chicago. San Francisco.
***
The parades of Mardi Gras are at once magnificent and home made.
“Mister, Mister!” goes the call of the crowd as the floats pass by. Beads are tossed and caught.
The weeks leading up to Lent are full of parades, king cakes, celebrations and preparations, big and small. After a day of slicing flesh and repairing spines, Henri would take us out for dinner at a restaurant along the parade route. Courses were ordered to accommodate the progression of the parade. So there might be oysters followed by bead throwing; a main course with a go cup for the wine; more beads; a cheese course; more beads and desert. Followed by brandy and cigars (for the gentlemen) amidst our catch of beads for the evening.
In addition were the endless parties that just seemed to keep coming. Friday nights out on the town were de rigeur throughout the year, as was the constant stream of food and drink.
And the food! I grew up in a food oriented family. Our multi-month European travel safaris were marked by the restauants we visited. Now in New Orleans, I viewed the town by the food it offered. From simple burgers at Port O’ Call; cajun popcorn at the bar on the corner; spinach salad with fried oysters at Maison de Ville; and the piece de resistance, the bread pudding souflee with bourbon creme anglaise at Commander’s Palace.
All the food in New Orleans was good. The warm searing spices locked your attention to the matter at hand, the plate before you, and temporarily refocused your attention from the sweltering heat. How is it in such a hot climate, heavy, spicy dishes prevail? The dark roux that binds the gumbos; red beans cooked slowly on Mondays, the historic wash days, served with streaming starchy rice; jambalaya; étouffée. The list goes on.
On a balcony overlook Royal Street, we sat pondering this Friday’s meal. From our second story perch I watched the crowd. They laugh, go cups in hand, as they weave through the streets.
I turned my attention back to the menu and ordered Shrimp Remoulade, follow by blackened prime rib. Michael ordered his usual stew of steaming gumbo. I sipped my wine, Michael his scotch. It was a pleasant night, the stars twinkled above and our future was ahead of us.
“I have an offer to go back to Yale,” Michael informed me.
New Haven. Connecticut. YES!
“What do you think?” I asked diplomatically.
“I don’t know if I want to go back where I trained.” Michael brought his glass to his lips. The ice, his concession to the heat, jingled as he raised the glass. Never join a club that wants you was one of his key operating rules, but this was a club worth joining.
“I’d think about it. I miss New England,” I slowly built my case for anything north. “But I can understand how you fell about going back to Yale. Whatever happened to the offers from the private groups?” Private practice would pay considerably more than academic medicine and having seen the abusive hierarchy and byzantine power struggles of academia, the prosperous bliss of private practice seemed like the route of choice to me.
“Shrimp remoulade?” the waiter inquired.
“For the lady.” Always the gentleman, Michael.
“How is school?” Michael changed the subject as I submerged myself in the tangy, spicy cool shrimp on a warm night in New Orleans.
“Wonderful,” I replied in combination to his query and my food. And for that moment, I let the topic of the future drop.
When the going gets tough, the tough go traveling!
An excerpt from Adventures By Sailplane
B.S. (By Sailplane) B.C. (Before Cancer)
New Orleans 1988
Morning, the sun streamed over the peeling ad for Dixie beer on the wall of the next door warehouse. I poured rich, hot, bitter chicory coffee for breakfast. I had found a marvelous Swiss patisserie uptown which baked the world’s richest, most decent brioche. These cakes become my standard morning fare as I watched the TV report on the steamy Gulf weather. New England looked so small and far away.
The year in New Orleans was a year in limbo. I took some classes at Tulane (architecture and cartography); Michael learned spinal surgery; and part of the year we traveled, looking at “real jobs” for my soon to be board certified husband.
Michael was offered some wonderful oportunties. To go back to Yale (my choice!), Harvard. Positions in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York. We seemed to spend every spare moment agonizing over what would be the best choice
In between, weekends became an attempt to escape from the heat and whatever else bore down upon one’s mind. And we both had a great deal on our minds. I cannot speak for Michael, but I was concerned about this year in limbo. I was concerned about my own future, about starting a family, about a new place, a new job. It was an uneasy place to be, and I felt as if I were being swept away by forces and decisions beyond my scope of influence. I steadied myself with the day to day minutia of life in this incredible town.
And I found great delight in simple pleasures. The architecture. Dining out. Music. The pleasure of learning again. A cup of cafe au lait on Jackson Square. Michael however found no such simply joys. His weekends soon devolved into a pitcher of Manhattans, a bag of Zapp’s potato chips and a stack of videos. Senseless violence videos of commandos and gunfire and visions of sexual brutality. Day after day, weekend after weekend. I tuned out at this side, reading or buried myself in the difficult task of resurrecting long dormant academic skills of my own.
Over the course of several months, Michael grew increasingly distant and incommunicative. He hated his patients, he hated the hospital staff, at times I think he hated me. He would couch his remarks in daggers, then withdraw into silence. This bright, talented man had somewhere decided upon a path of darkness, and here he resided in the recesses of his mind, his pitcher of Manhattans at his side. I do not know what sent him to these inaccessible places which begged for such relief, but he started becoming depressed and angry with greater and greater frequency. The pressure of the upcoming boards was considerable and I think fantasies of failure and grandeur drove him in circles in his mind. It was clearly a circle of destruction and I finally revolted one fine Saturday. I poured his Manhattans into a pitcher and drove uptown where I deposited him and his pitcher on a bench in Audubon park with the Sunday papers for amusement. He sulked, alternately lashing out at me, then demanding the attention I withdrew.
I walked.
I walk through the park. I walked to the University and I did not come back for hours. This descent into surly weekend oblivion was becoming too much. I thought back and if I were honest with myself, I would have admitted that some erratic behavior had surfaced before, although not to this degree of intensity.
Michael was a wonderful raconteur and mimic, and his tales delighted everyone. Years later I found out they were all false. He would boast about sports he never played; cars and racetracks he never drove; and a boarding school he never attended. But at the time, he pulled everyone in, and we all believed.
This year, in New Orleans, he is vaguely macabre and totally self absorbed. He is absorbed in his drink, in the darkest recesses of his mind, yet he demands that his every dark and perverse whim be the center of attention. He pulls the life out of those around him when he is like this.
And then, in a brighter moment, he is all shine and energy, witty and engaging, the perfect handsome Harvard man. But that is a facade, an energy shield. He uses his energy to lure people in like lightening bugs into a jar, and then he slams on the lid, leaving no opening for air, and one by one, the sparkling lights with all their energy and beauty, dim and die.
It was the heat. It was New Orleans, I reassure myself. Alone in this strange town tucked behind levees and hidden from the river to which it owes is very soul, characterized by its culinary and personal excesses, with no one to talk to or confide in, and with Henry as the standard bearer singing into the night, I saw no outlet but a naive hope for some better future.
Inspiration, joy & discovery through travel. Oh, did I mention with supposedly incurable cancer?
What's on your bucket list?
Thank you for stopping by!
CancerRoadTrip is about making lemonade out of lemons.
As you read my story, you may want to start at the beginning to "grok" how CancerRoadTrip came to be. You can click here to start at the end (which is actually the beginning) and read forward! The posts are chronological, with the most recent posts appearing on the front page.
Pearl Harbor is obviously on the must see list, but the purpose of my trip is healing. I am not looking for the resort experience or for an urban challenge. I am looking to restore my creativity and outlook on life.
perspective of her buildings. I studied suburban and urban buildings; townhouses in the quarter and plantations in the country. The garden district houses and uptown showcases. By Christmas, I could walk through any part of town and rattle off the buildings, the ornamentation the architects and the dates.
My other class was American cartography, but it was really about how Louisiana determined the geographic exploration and evolution of the U.S. Every facet of American cartography was examined from the perspective of the Gulf of Mexico. New England, that tiny collection of states on the morning weather map, barely warranted a mention. It was a most interesting perspective.
slicing flesh and repairing spines, Henri would take us out for dinner at a restaurant along the parade route. Courses were ordered to accommodate the progression of the parade. So there might be oysters followed by bead throwing; a main course with a go cup for the wine; more beads; a cheese course; more beads and desert. Followed by brandy and cigars (for the gentlemen) amidst our catch of beads for the evening.
And the food! I grew up in a food oriented family. Our multi-month European travel safaris were marked by the restauants we visited. Now in New Orleans, I viewed the town by the food it offered. From simple burgers at Port O’ Call; cajun popcorn at the bar on the corner; spinach salad with fried oysters at Maison de Ville; and the piece de resistance, the bread pudding souflee with bourbon creme anglaise at Commander’s Palace.
crowd. They laugh, go cups in hand, as they weave through the streets.
cup of cafe au lait on Jackson Square. Michael however found no such simply joys. His weekends soon devolved into a pitcher of Manhattans, a bag of Zapp’s potato chips and a stack of videos. Senseless violence videos of commandos and gunfire and visions of sexual brutality. Day after day, weekend after weekend. I tuned out at this side, reading or buried myself in the difficult task of resurrecting long dormant academic skills of my own.
